


of need against need against need

by GStK



Series: i just finally heard that unnoticed silence of never having one again [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV, Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 14:15:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19211110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GStK/pseuds/GStK
Summary: imagine that the world is made out of love,now imagine that it isn’t.





	of need against need against need

**Author's Note:**

> Spans SB, flirts with ShB.  
> Second Person PoV.

let me sing you a song of oblivion. let me weave you a tale of unbelonging. you don’t have to pretend like the two are so different. they are, but they aren’t, not when they’re lies told across the breadth of belial’s body.

he likes his dances. he likes his sun. he likes disproving the falsehood that men cannot lie with their bodies, because his angles and sharp edges try to entreat everyone to his core. it’s the qestir, he said, who think all words come from a wish to deceive. he is in a breath the one who blasphemes all of their beliefs, and he is in a glance the accompaniment to all of yours. he doesn’t know what he wants without you. he just _is_.

belial is a shadow in the dawn of the azim steppe. he offers you an enticing finger and a smile, tries to bring you to dance. as is the way of things, you turn away from him and embrace your research.

the sun burns hot on your back. the day is begun with a trickle of sweat and the sailing music of your twain-sided beast.

* * *

“you’re the  _worst_ ,” he chuckles as you toss another body, setting your books upon the dusty altar now that bones have been scattered away. “you know this is a holy place, right? is that why you’re doing this?”

“is that not why you brought me here?”

“i was thinking we’d get down and dirty,” he suggests instead, but you both know that’s not why. he knows you and he knows that little shiver that begins and dies at the end of your spine whenever you defy and defile. “emphasis on the dirty, backwards and forwards.”

“i’m going to choke you.”

“with all this dust? maybe you’ll finally succeed.”

but not when your hands can barely span his neck and squeeze. you’ve tried. he’s helped you try. there’s been a tiny spark of disappointment in each of you when you never quite manage. you’ve spit on him. he’s gurgled back. you look at him, and he stands taller and you’re thinking about it--

but not when your eyes can barely see these pages. you coax your lantern to burn a little brighter. echoes of history try to taunt you away. belial whistles at them like death is just another word for ‘temporarily bored.’

long since eons ago have all their eyes rotted away. their teeth went later. if you ring a foreign bell a thousand thousand times it will begin to remind you of the cathedrals back home, and even here, they enshrine and try to pretend there’s honour in history. zephirin; haurchefant; tagar or chegul or gantulga. it’s all the same. memories rot like blood vessels and that’s what makes sacred. forgetfulness and ignorance are holy.

but what about driving a gash so deep across the star that it will never forget? dalamud does not need a voice or a word.

“i want to hear every gong in this realm thunder.”

“that, i can do,” he promises with shining eyes.

“i want to hear you gag on your own tongue.”

“we can work on your grip --”

you do just so and in your whirling breath, you seize the front of his cloak. he staggers down a step and he’s bending over to meet your gaze. you’re panting and he’s not, then he’s panting and you’re not and you’re cutting through him with everything the gods pressed into the palm of your hand.

“i want to string every eye together and make you choke on each one.”

what kind of guardian hands wisdom and an impeccable mind to a mortal and doesn’t say, _bear witness_?

“i’d be glad to.”

the kind that wants to die.

they’ll go down faster than belial does. a flick of your wrist and he’s willingly on his knees.

the sound of every gong at once is a culmination for the victor of the naadam. you don’t have much of an interest in trying displays of flesh. your words light a fire under belial that truly should have been left unkindled. what does it mean to you to see goalposts and territory lines move this way or that?

* * *

they don’t welcome him back happily. they injure him on his approach. (good.) they don’t welcome you, either. they can sense the wrongness in you. (good.) but the buduga are political men, and they are stupid to turn down a might in the upcoming turn of the season, the century, or however oft this farce takes place.

he reminds you with a kiss to your shoulder. he says something about the gathering and scattering of dirt by the gharl. you think over the aurora waves of his voice, and you think about how he probably let himself get hurt just to see if you would dote on him. you’re pressing your tongue to the bottom of your mouth again and letting the saliva pool in behind your lips. he smiles when he notices.

the bed you make is foreign fabric and horse hair and a warmth you do not like. you keep having to throw his arm off of you in the middle of the night. he tosses and turns when you break free of his captive embrace and force your way out of the tent. even when he wakes he never stops you, because he’s not stupid enough to think he could hold you back.

you’re sometimes stupid enough to think that if anything were to happen on these grassy hills, his spine would break into wings and he would take flight to come save you. when the sweat runs down your back and you look up at a sky that’s spinning known constellations in all the wrong ways, you debate the contrary. the contradictions.

if it helped your schemes you would snap him in half and suck his bones dry. if he thought it was prudent he would break your arms and then your legs and then take your eyes, croon to you through every painful heartbeat.

that’s your idea of love.

his is winning a stupid game for a stupid tribe on a stupid plane, embracing dirt and light until arbitration declares another tide of oriniri domination. the first thing he does is snap traditions and speeches, retreat from the merrymaking and sorrow to take your hand. there’s your idea of love and then there’s his.

pointless either way. time is the universe barreling away from you and stars getting further out of reach while he takes your face in his hands and touches your forehead to his. time, love, the expansion of the cosmos: inevitable forces to break down molecular bonds.

pointless, either way.

* * *

“i want--”

“ _bi khüsch baina_. well. start with  _baina_. that’ll be one of the words you want.”

“...”

“hm? keep going, cil. wasn’t trying to interrupt.”

he tosses you a toothy grin. you seethe back at him. you refuse to embrace his language. he thinks it’s cute. you think he’s banal.

he encourages you with a hand at your shoulder. “what do you want? i get it. you don’t like it, but you should know how to get around. you know? basic survival skills? here’s me thinking i was preaching wisdom to the choir of the wise…”

he goes on. let him. if the qestir can get along, so can you. it’s not really a conversation, or an argument. he’s prattling his thoughts along while his fingers dance upon your shoulder, trying to make themselves unfamiliar enough that you’ll snap and slap them back. it’s the height of summer and he’s testing the limits of your patience because he craves.

he craves. he needs. he wants.

“i want nothing.”

“ _bi yuu ch khüsekhgüi baina_. ah-- hmm-- yeah. probably.”

you click your tongue at him. he wheels away, hands flying up in a fake show of defence.

“i want **nothing**.”

“ _teg_?”

“teg.”

“and you’re definitely not going to be nice about it.”

is there anyone else out there on this star of yours who wants to break down everything and fold it into one? and what about your wildest assumptions, your thoughts, your theories on the shattering of the universe and shards across the spectrum? is there any reflection of this world where someone wants what you do?

because belial doesn’t. belial wants you. belial wants to give you everything. you want nothing. it’s the height and the heat of summer and your robes are dragging you down, and no matter how much he tries to mend the hems or bleach the colour, it will never be the snowy white it once was. summer, autumn, winter, spring. winter, summer, summer winter. everything and nothing.

somewhere out there there’s a you who wants everything. and you’ll crush him beneath your heel.

he comes up and embraces you again. he can’t stop clinging even when it’s the hottest day it’s ever been. you’re out in the sun just outside of your tent, and there’s fame and appreciation in the shimmering shades on the horizon. belial does not go out to chase it.

“we could start with a pet lamb,” he suggests.

“absolutely not.”

* * *

you’re having this dream that begins with the _bang_ of hydaelyn falling to her knees and the _boom_ of your spear meeting white marble. that’s where the gods are best judged: in their own palaces.

you’re having this dream and he’s entering you to the _bang_ of the distant war drums of the oronir on their high mountain. the _boom_ is their intent, all of their anger, all of their bloodlust aimed at the dotharl. is it for a slaughtered brethren? no. is it for another tribe wiped from the map? of course not.

 _bang_ , _boom_. you’re having this dream where you’re not physically here and your body is just a conduit for the pleasure being breathed out upon you, a connection between one place and the next. it’s always like this. it will always be like this.

the dotharl and the oronir will never stop acting like spoiled children.

you exhale a solid breath: bang. you tighten around him and he gives you a grunt of satisfaction for your efforts. he’s reaching down to make sure you’re included in the fun, too. it’s not about him, and it’s always about you. he’s whispering words of affection that get lost to the drumbeat and you’re glad for it, except you can still hear the intent through the vibration, because universal things can travel through any medium. bleed out your own ears and his love would still make its way to you, boom, no matter how many shields in which you blanket yourself.

you hold onto him.

he thrusts into you.

you push back down and you see yourself sweep a robed arm in front of you.

he arches his back and his scales glitter in the moonfall.

bang, you retort, touching him with ten fingers disguised in black gloves.

boom, he answers, with a strength to bounce you back, to drag you on top of him.

you take over.

he relaxes.

you dig your fingers down his front.

he flattens his stomach to help you leave trails of pink.

you’re having this dream where the meeting of your physical bodies isn’t just two bunches of cells crashing together but it actually means something. you’re having this dream where you’re present for your naked self being united with someone else, and it’s not wrong, and the pleasure crests over the mutations and scars the gods left you with at birth.

he’s coughing out these needy sighs and yearning noises for you. he’s not putting on a picture. he’s had a dozen lovers or maybe a thousand, and he lies for them but not for you and never for you. he’s banging his clenched hands against the dirt and you’re booming out terse commands that make him go rigid and let you take the helm.

you slow your rhythm and stick two fingers inside of him, so he’s inside of you and you’re inside of him. he laughs at the absurdity. you touch him in places that you know feel good and you go slow, but you never quite stop, and his laughter starts to get a little high-pitched and crazed. he wants to be confused and forget himself and be one and nothing, quantum in a singular moment.

or maybe that’s just you. you drag back your fingers.

you slam onto him.

you force your digits into his mouth.

he swallows the taste of himself. he leans back so you can loom. he grasps your hips to keep you steady.

you’re having this dream where war has a purpose and so does sex with a man who came from dragons. you’re caught up in this fever where your pulse doesn’t quake because you’re angry at the world but because you’re abusing all that came from it, you’re making it your own, you’re staking your claim in veins and rivers of a pale man with dark hair and dark eyes and a dark heart.

 _bang_. you curve, you spark, you sail.

 _boom_. he holds you.

he drags you into him when he finishes, forces your clothed body onto his naked one, so there’s just his robes between you and his skin. the drums finish their spiteful announcement. he pants into your ear and you feel his racing pulse where your neck makes contact with his.

he won’t let you go even when you pull yourself off of him, when his cum is sopping out of you and onto his leg. even when you tug he won’t let you go. you voice your complaints and your struggles but he holds you like you’re the anchor and he’s the sailor who just wants to meet mermaids at the bottom of the sea.

heat is crashing over you like waves in the most unpleasant of ways. you don’t tell him how pathetic he is and he doesn’t smile at you. you’re both just breathing, and you’re having this shared dream where one man and another can resist bond-break on a star that’s going to see its end days by your own hand. you’re having this dream and you’re not waking up from it and neither is he, neither is he.

* * *

he puts your robe out to dry. the sheep are trying to nibble on it. it’s not as if he wants to leave you behind, but there’s no reason for you to come with him to reunion, either. you’re a touch less regal in a wool blanket than your usual attire, but,

“they like this colour better,” he says, pulling on the edge of your costume. “sometimes the pants you put on can make the difference of going home with rags or riches.”

“you get what we need,” you tell him. you’re not asking. “i don’t care what you’ve put on.”

“but _they_ sure do. jealousy would be a nice colour on you too -- hey, don’t kick me!”

he gets on his way. you don’t quite see him off. you’re approaching reunion, you’re coming upon the boundary of reunion, you’re in reunion. there’s the sun and there’s a thousand tribes here under it, all with their lilting tongues or not. there are foreign men here today, too. like you. they have big eyes and an eye for baubles that serve purpose in ceremony. they’ll only be desecrated on the throats of wives.

belial’s not giving them the time of day, though. he’s going for his people, and he’s off to accomplish what you need. hearing him isn’t important; he speaks with his body. a touch there. a smile here. his current favourite merchant, the one with the blue eyes and the white hair, she’s a tenth of his size and she’s all but bouncing around at his attention.

he could have the world in his hand if he wanted it. he doesn’t need to follow you; he didn’t need to bring you here. you didn’t need to rescue him from snow and sunder and he didn’t have to travel halfway across the star just to collapse at your feet. he wasn’t fleeing anything, he’ll say. he was coming for you.

the devil only gets one moment, for grins, for eyes turned back on you, for ‘please see what i am.’ you let the devil in and you shift under his gaze, and his joy is turned true.

“fool,” you mouth. his tail gives a sway and his hand rises to meet the friendly slap from another buduga. he keeps looking at you.

* * *

outsider come return home, he is such. for men that switch allegiances so easily, for men that take discarded brethren who share no blood, they’re slow to welcome him back. the trust is there, in a way one can only trust belial when you know what he is in full. it’s half-hearted and weary and affectionate and needing, all at once.

they hold him away from themselves because of you. they don’t want your flesh. you’ve kept yourself at a distance from them, but they still look at your pointed ears, your white robes, the terse words you share with you and yours. they embrace their oronir masters like parasites sucking on to the side of a lanternfish. they wrestle and play their games.

belial has a family. belial has a place to belong. he’s made it just as much as he’s made himself, made the world around him. perhaps allying with the oronir was his last great idea before his pilgrimage of daring stupidity. but belial has a family, and you do not.

he tells you otherwise in kisses pressed along each column of your spine. they’ll never matter like you do. they’ll never give him that sense of belonging like you do. you kick him out of bed and each time he drags himself right back, and he embraces you.

you ask if he likes the pain.

he tells you he likes everything you do.

he lies and weaves the truth underneath so you can have a game of tugging the knot apart. that’s a game they make their new brothers play to chase away the pain and help them forget the feeling blood and kin evoke.

eventually,

the hero is going to come along and displace the lot of you. he will speak hydaelyn’s words and be heard by every ear, and then he will perform some miracle that stays the chaos of the steppe. he will put every book and every life into order and pat himself on the back, head off to his next destination to banish the shade under the light.

when belial sees your mind wandering, he covers you. he brings the blankets around you both and he dots out the moon peeking through the flap of the tent. he doesn’t entice you into the physical and he’s just sitting up, acting like some guardian to keep the light away because it’s sure to consume you first.

you’re doing that thing again where you press your tongue to the bottom of your mouth. he’s doing that thing again where his eyes glow in the dark, and he’s not smiling.

* * *

“i think i was three… no, four summers when they got me. yeah. that’s how old your books said you had to be to start forming memories. let’s go with that.”

you’re on the precipice of the oronir throne, looking off into dotharl territory, staring at a long-twain statue of nhaama in the distance. their gods don’t look right either.

“what tribe were you?”

“whatever it was, they’re long gone now,” he says. it’s his way of avoiding the question. he puts his arms up behind his head, inevitable in how he joins you at your side. you’re both looking down but he’s not looking at landscape, he’s looking at you. “i remember a lot of fire. a lot of death. looks like i was special enough to keep around.”

“you were a boy. they keep boys.”

“aww. i’m sure they would’ve kept you too. you’ve got such a brain on you. such a mouth on you, too.” he tries to touch you and you hit away his hand with such force that it both surprises you. your sore spots are still there and make appearances at the worse times. you bore holes into nhaama’s broken back.

“... oookay. things are different here, cil. your parents or your house don’t matter. the people you killed? don’t matter. the amount of coin in your pocket? don’t matter. your brothers matter a little, but every day, there’s a chance some other tribe is going to stomp you and your identity will be lost ‘cause your guy gave another guy the wrong look. people die. you live. you start over.”

the people here speak proudly of their history, but it’s true. it’s different from ishgard, where every breath counts and gets recorded into a tome. entire histories are lost here day by day to bloodshed. the strongest survive and rewrite the survivors onto their tongues. or they don’t, and every head is taken to the sand, and you pray that your might will mean the reincarnation of a storied hero from your tribe.

“how many stories have you destroyed?” you wonder. he leans in, gives your ear a little kiss.

“ _whoooo knooows_ ,” he breathes against you. “take a guess, _minii khair_. was i lying just now? i can take the name of anybody i’ve murdered and pretend that’s my heritage. that’s the right of the steppe. the truth is the light of the sun and the moon. the rest? chaos.”

he’s speaking your language and he knows it. he smiles when you lean your head against him. “you want to kill the head of the oronir and take his tales.”

he laughs. “oh! do i now! if that’s what your plans call for, then i’m all yours. let’s make it kinky.”

belial is a survivalist. it matters little where he came from. what matters is he’s yours.

* * *

you meet with two members of the goro on your trip up to the house of the crooked coin. this far north, surrounded by monsters, it is unwise to venture. but here they are, a man and woman with their steeds.

belial takes the lead. the setting sun plays off their faces. this is unlike your encounter with the kagon, who were so guarded, so disguised under the nocturnal light. these two are friendly, and they laugh at one of belial’s cruder jokes, and they’re peaceful and animated in the way idiots are.

your ears prick at some of the chatter that passes you by. you don’t understand it all, but you’ve heard the words enough. belial’s insinuations turn into facts. he’s left with his brows raised, looking the pair up and down, and by the time he can set his eyes on you --

well. your scowl says enough. belial laughs and sweeps your storm under the rug. the pair decline, set their eyes further north, and you know they mean to unite their bodies at the same place you are headed.

the woman nuzzles her steed. the man pats his. it’s such a raw display of love that you feel sick.

belial meets back with you as they depart. you delay following after them. they wave as they pass over the crest of another hill. they’re pretending your friends, and they’re looking at you like you’re an au’ra and not an elezen. you don’t like it.

and your partner, his chuckles taste like irony when he explains everything. they’re bonded to their horses; they’re married. the pair couldn’t care less for each other, and it’s all for the tribe. they’re in love with beasts and they’re going to make a child that will fall in love with beasts, and that’s why they don’t care what you are.

because you’re a beast? or because they debase themselves for tradition?

you don’t find an answer, but it doesn’t matter when you catch the two bashed against the rocks and bleeding out while ovoo pick out their brains. once, they had a purpose, and now they’re a distraction while you make your way to the crystals.

waves carry the same sand and wash the land over again. the cycle repeats.

* * *

“what do you think?” he pants above you and behind you. your hands are gripped into the dirt and you’re on the edge, ilms away from falling off the cliff. every thrust pushes you a little closer until he drags you back in, raking your front across the stony ground.

“pointless,” you grunt. there’s pleasure but there’s your lungs being compressed. your breaths are short and every thrust draws the blackness a little closer in.

“i think it’s cute.” of course he does. he leans down to kiss and make marks at your neck. you slap him away but that just takes away your leverage, lets him push that much harder inside of you. “marriage. bonding -- bondage. either way. consecrated unions not your thing?”

you shouldn’t even have to tell him. he’s just taunting you. he’s every bit loving when he takes a hand and wraps it around your windpipe. you rasp and you shut your eyes and when you open them, there they are. the crystals you wanted to study glitter in the moonlight. nhaama, they call her. this is the closest you’ll ever get to god.

“when i was-- a child,” you choke. the effect is immediate: he slows, he lets go of your neck. he almost entirely unhands you, which gives you enough freedom to drag your way back over to the edge by way of your elbow. “when i was a child,” you repeat with aether-filled lungs, “i had parents. and those parents wished for me to be in union with another child when i was of age. the union would have elevated our status and made us quite comfortable.”

you pause. he takes this time to slide back into you. he pulls you gently onto your side, and then onto your back, so your eyes are meeting. he’s looking down at you like rapture. little scraps and he is over the moon.

“he was a fool. my parents were fools. so i killed them.”

“and little old cil never got caught, huh?” he challenges, teasing, but his pupils are blown wide. he’s rocking into you and he’s absolutely taken in.

“you’re a fool, too,” you sigh. “it takes little planning for a terrible accident.” and it had been terrible. and each corpse had been humiliated. you had seen to that very well.

he reflects on this, turning his head. he reaches down to touch you and for the first time in a while you let him. you give the slightest arch and he drinks it in, mouthing at your chest.

“so no wedding?”

“kill the warrior of light and i’ll consider it.”

he’s only a few pumps away after that. you roll your eyes, and you look upside down at the crystalline formation while he fingers you to completion. you clench around him and let out a soft breath.

you think about kicking him off of you and sending him to meet nhaama. he drags you up and kisses you, wiping the sweat off of you. it takes little planning for a terrible accident.

but if he were to go you would be with him. that’s a kind of union.

* * *

your hair’s getting long. the nights are getting cooler. belial thins and shortens your strands with a knife. he’s gentle and concentrated in his handiwork. perhaps this is one of his stories.

there’s rain outside. the sun is shining even above the clouds. the fall of your hair to the floor of your tent is masked by the dribbling of droplets and the occasional clap of thunder. if you tune your ears, you can hear belial’s breathing.

the warrior of light is here. you know this because they’re looking at you and they’re talking sometimes. it won’t be long before another naadam. the perfect union of cataclysmic elements are coming together. you could have belial end him here, and then the fate of this shard would be lost, and all that concentrated light that’s been sweeping the world would come to a simple halt. the spinning would continue but the days would be numbered.

you shut your eyes. your goal is on the edge of your fingertips. but you open your eyes and belial is there and he’s shaving off another cut of hair. it’s the perfect chance and belial would die for it. he wants it. he wants to die for you so badly. he wants you to give him a purpose.

you’re having this dream where the world comes to a close and when the shard takes its last breath, when all the oxygen is depleted from the atmosphere, your hand is clasped around his. you’re having this dream where you’re both sailing above the darkness and you’re watching the suffering below, and in this dream you achieve the impossible and jump to another world. belial is the same but you’re not, and this time, you’re in the right body.

you’re having this dream. you’re doling out the calculations and the probabilities. you’re thinking about your feral need to see the one wearing your face dead and to spit on the corpse of hydaelyn. belial would die. in the dream, belial lives. a dream is a dream and this is reality, you’d think,

but your hair _snips_ and falls to the ground in gentle reminder. you hum his name. he hums yours back.

you’re having this dream where you’re seizing him by the neck and kissing him, and it’s not so much a dream any more. his eyes are a little glassy. he wants you so bad. you can give yourself to him.

you will, just once. so you say now,

let’s watch the end of the world together.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary adapted from works by Richard Siken.


End file.
